Off the Wall's 'Gigi' retains its charm

Opening in 1958, "Gigi" won nine Oscars, including best picture. Opening in 1973, a stage adaptation - using the same enchanting songs (and four new ones) by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe - closed after 103 performances.

I didn't see the Broadway production, so I can't tell you what went wrong. But since I have seen the current production of "Gigi" being directed by Dale Gutzman at Off the Wall Theatre, I can state with certainty that Broadway ought to give this chestnut another look.

Gutzman has; he staged "Gigi" in 1997, a production starring a young Sarah Sokolovic.

This time around, Gutzman has tapped Liz Mistele to play the naive Parisian girl being trained as a courtesan, and Mistele once again proves adept at straddling the line between innocence and experience.

Dressed in a girl's frock as she swings her leg and flubs her etiquette lessons, Mistele mischievously transforms every attempt to tame her carefree spirit into another spontaneous game, in which she invents the rules as she goes along.

No wonder that Gaston, who is young, rich and bored - with women, life and himself - falls hard.

Jeremy C. Welter lets us see that if Gigi is one of the "little girls" commemorated in the opening number, Gaston is one of that same song's "little boys" - pouting and a bit confused by a brittle world taking the joy out of life.

By capturing what's childlike in Gaston, Welter lends credibility to his budding romance with Gigi; long before Gaston and Gigi realize what is happening to them, their love is plain to us.

Ditto what we see from Karl Miller and Marilyn White, as long-ago lovers Honoré and Mamita.

When Miller and White join forces to sing "I Remember It Well," this sun-dappled story becomes a bittersweet meditation on the passage of time, in which every new romance eventually grows old - playing tricks with our memory, much as time does with us.

The second act of "Gigi" can induce a similarly hazy nostalgia for the first; driven by plot, it represents a fall from Edenic grace - as best symbolized by the interminable "The Contract," in which Aunt Alicia (an appropriately icy Sharon Nieman-Koebert, in dire need of a more dignified wig) haggles with Gaston's lawyers over what Gigi is worth.

The answer, of course, is that her value can't be quantified - any more than we can define how and why we fall in love.

So yes: I could tell you that most of this cast acts better than it sings (Mistele is a distinguished exception). Or that the costuming and set design - while impressive for Off the Wall, given its budget - fall short of the movie's elegance and charm. Or that the follow-spot and a few of the musical cues need to be tighter.

But the truth is that, like "Gigi" itself, this production transcends its faults, making clear that its theme also applies to all great musicals, which are never too old to be young, when embraced with an open heart.

IF YOU GO

"Gigi" continues through Dec. 31 at Off the Wall Theatre, 127 E. Wells St. For tickets, call (414) 327-3552 or go to offthewalltheatre.com.

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Keep up with the art scene and trends in urban design with art and architecture critic Mary Louise Schumacher. Every week, you'll get the latest reviews, musings on architecture and her picks for what to do on the weekends.